posted at 1:20 pm on February 19, 2009 by Allahpundit

The way Drudge is hyping this, I thought there’d be a mob of brokers on the floor chanting “no justice, no peace.” In fact, it’s CNBC anchor Rick Santelli pitching some pro forma populism about the unfairness of having to bail out deadbeats to a few obliging hoots and whistles. Try decaf, Matt.

I’m all for the tea party, though. Who’s in? Exit question: You don’t really want the Octomom to have to live on the street, do you? Click the image to watch.

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Check this out. I’ve run the numbers myself. Feel free to double-check them.

The federal government will spend approximately 1.5 – 1.7 trillion for the TARP / Stimulus extravaganza. The entire crisis was caused by the burst of the housing bubble, which brought about the credit crisis, etc.

There are approximately 80 million homeowners in the United States. Approximately 40% of Americans own their homes outright (no mortgage).

That leaves 48 million homeowners with mortgages.

Divide 1.7 trillion by 48 million and you get about $35,000.

The FEDS could have literally given every American with a mortgage a voucher for $35,000 to apply to their mortgage. For the “poor victims” who are nearing foreclosure, that could mean avoiding foreclosure (If $35,000 doesn’t keep you from being foreclosed on, you are probably in some serious sh*t).

For the people who pay their mortgages on time, it would mean a huge chunk of equity.

Now, I’m not saying this is a good idea. It’s probably not. But don’t you think that giving every single homeowner $35,000 of equity would solve this “crisis” a hell of a lot faster than continuing down the moronic road of repeated bailouts and new government entitlements.

It’s mind-boggling what our politicians are doing to the United States of America. What’s even more amazing is the flacid, pathetic response of the weak-minded American public.

I’m noticing the tone. I’m seeing the enthusiasm. And I’m digging out from the sheer volume of e-mails I’ve been getting today about that CNBC dude. The reaction to Rick Santelli’s Chicago-trading-floor incident this morning echoes the emotional reaction my inbox had to Sarah Palin’s convention speech this summer.

I make no endorsements. It’s just an observation.

I think people are hungry for someone who is fed up with the way things are and who seem to believe in something enough to know there in an alternative worth fighting for. Some of the voices may be far from perfect, but Americans are looking for signs of the life of an alternative. And so if a representative pops up — someone who appears to have roots and energy, folks will cheer them on in the hopes there’s a candidate here. Maybe not a presidential candidate, but a leader of some sort. Someone who can offer a vision of something other than a culture of bailout.

Here’s where your plan fails. You have to figure in the bureaucratic waste and graft and payola. After that, you’re only seeing about $2000 per mortgage holder. You know, ACORN has to get their cut to help counsel these folks.

A Chicago day trader acting like he’s one of us, how precious. Its idiots and swindlers like him that got this country in trouble. A blowhard punk trader, yeah guy, your the one I want to listen too about middle class problems. puh…..leeze.

Man, I don’t like President Ogabe either, but isn’t it a bit harsh to talk about him like this?

Did you actually listen to Hannity’s show or is that just one of the lib talking points that they want you to throw out in random, off topic fashion. You can tell its swaying a lot of opinion here…can’t you?

A Chicago day trader acting like he’s one of us, how precious. Its idiots and swindlers like him that got this country in trouble. A blowhard punk trader, yeah guy, your the one I want to listen too about middle class problems. puh…..leeze.

athensboy on February 19, 2009 at 8:51 PM

FYI, the guys on the floor in Chicago are nothing like the ones in NYC. It’s a completely different group. They are certainly sharp, but I have known a few who actually work two jobs, and what they make is usually a fraction of what the guys trading equities in NYC make.

A Chicago day trader acting like he’s one of us, how precious. Its idiots and swindlers like him that got this country in trouble. A blowhard punk trader, yeah guy, your the one I want to listen too about middle class problems. puh…..leeze.

athensboy on February 19, 2009 at 8:51 PM

Yet, when millionaire Noam Chomsky starts foaming at the mouth about American hegemony, he’s just an average American telling it like it is, right?

The hypocrisy from you people just never, ever, ever stops, does it?

P.S. Most traders work for a larger corporation and are paid decent wages, but have no job security (make a few losing trades and the boss tends to find someone to replace you), and most of their compensation is based on performance. Oh, and they’re all being replaced by computers as we speak. Yeah, real plum lifestyle they’ve got, so let’s screw them over so some house-flipper-wannabe can pay for the mortgage they would have been able to pay for but can’t because they lost all the capital they put into a spec house they were going to sell just before the market went bust.

This video made my day – have been depressed a bunch lately with ogabe dealing blow after blow to our country’s current state of fragility. Then DeMint comes out and puts a tad of icing on my cupcake. sweet

Serial house-flpping was about the only way that a californian without an income in the $200K+ category could ever realize the dream of home ownership; goes to show how screwed up the system really is. We need fundamental change; tossing out Barney & friends would be a good first step.

(The Washington Post reported today that Obama told hispanic groups yesterday that they need to coordinate with each other and start putting together a plan to get amnesty through Congress).

AZCoyote: More of that “community organizer” crap from the Big O?

Truly, Obama is working against every amendment in our Bill of Rights. Can he be impeached for subverting the Constitution that he has sworn to uphold? Present-dent Government values government more so than he does the individual and protected individual rights.

“This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can excercise their constitutional right of amending it, or exercise their revolutionary right to overthrow it.”

We need fundamental change; tossing out Barney & friends would be a good first step.

mad scientist on February 19, 2009 at 9:56 PM

That’s what should have happened the day after the Fannie Mae crisis broke, and John McCain should have been leading the charge. His failure to do so is a mistake the country will be paying for well into the next generation. In fact, the next generation just made an $800 billion dollar down payment on it. It should have been Armageddon right there in September, with Republicans fanning out across the airwaves to tell the public the resignations of Frank and Dodd were the non-negotiable pre-requisites of any bailout bill, and screaming that every hour those cretins sat in the Senate was an hour the Democrats were obstructing the business of the people.

That’s what the Democrats were afraid would happen – they woke up on the morning the Fannie Mae crisis broke shaking like leaves, wondering if they would still have a party by the end of November, and within a week they were giddy and delirious with disbelief that they were allowed to pin the whole mess on the people who tried to put a stop to it. Find some video of Nancy Pelosi from early September 2008 – she’s clearly scared to death, stammering and sweating on camera. By the end of September she’s drunk on the high of someone who not only dodged a bullet, but is riding it to absolute power. The Republicans owe the citizens of America an apology for facilitating this travesty, and allowing their weakness to saddle America with the deadly crisis of the Obama disaster.

As it stands now, Barney Frank will die in office, and that simple crime against the citizens of the United States illustrates the awful danger of fascism. Captains of industry can certainly be corrupt, and a distressing number of them belong in orange jumpsuits, but at least they live within the economy that is affected by their actions. The most rapacious oil baron wouldn’t bring the entire U.S. economy down in flames, because he needs that economy to create and sustain his wealth. With a vigilant government guarding against monopolies and abuse of the consumer, the capitalist can be relied upon to act in a manner that benefits the economy, because his own personal goals – even his personal greed – require the creation of wealth. Who busts his hump in the free market to earn a pile of worthless paper?

The fascist is a political creature that controls the economy without being part of it. No matter what crimes Barney Frank has perpetrated against the public trust, he was never in danger of losing his own personal fortune or standard of living – those things are politically guaranteed. He was able to engineer a trillion-dollar market crash to satisfy his hunger for political power, without ever worrying about a single nickel of his own wealth being at stake. Even if the Republicans had shown some backbone and gotten him booted from the Senate in September 08, his personal comfort and wealth are assured – he has piles of graft from those he enriched through his political activities, and a fawning liberal audience ready to keep him on the talk-show and lecture circuit with a seven-figure income. He was no more personally invested in the disaster he caused than I would be, if I made a risky real estate deal in a game of Monopoly. Indeed, if you subscribe to the Cloward-Piven theory, causing economic devastation may have been his objective all along.

I’d rather see the economy headed up by greedy capitalists than pious fascists any day of the week. With the capitalists, there’s a chance we might share in their good fortune. With the fascists, we are guaranteed to suffer for their failures.

As of this post, nearly 100,000 people have voted on Santelli’s poll in one day, and of those 90% would join a tea party. I live in the Chicago area and I can’t tell you how proud I would be to bring my son to a real American protest.

Let’s keep this alive, folks! Come to Chicago, tell the world what America really stands for. They may ignore a hundred of us or even a thousand, but if 100,000 people show up, not even the MSM can spin it.

For it to have close to the same impact as the Tea Party, we need to throw illegal aliens in the water (but they’d swim back).

Or throw our 1040 forms in the water (1040EZ for libs). Can you imagine if there was a public concerted effort to encourage people to not file their taxes. I’m not sure the IRS could keep up with tracking everyone down.

I hate paying taxes as much as the next guy. But while this is a great sentiment, this is not very good advice if you actually OWE taxes on April 15th. An extension does not extend the time to PAY your taxes. It only extends the time to FILE your taxes. If you owe, you best send in a check on the 15th, unless you are willing to take on the penalties and interest assessed for not paying on time.

In short, this strategy would do more harm to the taxpayer than it would to D.C.

I just saw Santelli on GMA, and I’ll tell you, he’s a tool. He’s in a moral rampage against the wrong people and for the wrong reason. This is about Freddie and Fannie and the imposition of relaxed restrictions on mortgages, in a market gone completely out of control. Without having buyers to qualify for outrageous mortgage payments, the industry self-regulates.

Instead, Dems decided that everyone needs a home and so they must loan to anyone who promises to pay. Catch-22. You need the home, you qualify; you can’t afford it, but you can’t live anywhere in the area for what you can afford.

The housing market was due for a correction about the time the mortgage restrictions were made so liberal. That had the dual purpose of postponing the correction and inflating the shadow value of real estate.

Get mad at the Dems. Get mad at Fannie and Freddie. But don’t get mad at the consumers caught in the middle.

Who busts his hump in the free market to earn a pile of worthless paper?

People like me, who have to work a cr@p job – when we can even get that – because everything better is outsourced, automated, or flooded with experienced experts in the field displaced by the previous two.

I live within my means, I save, work hard, buy an affordable house, make my payments, pay my taxes and…

I GET NOTHING FROM THE MESSIAH EXCEPT A BILL FOR:

Those that were “GIVEN” a house they could NOT afford, (even in the best of times), made poor choices and mistakes, don’t pay taxes, are on welfare and foodstamps, don’t want to work, made a bad investment, can’t read a payment schedule or mortgage contract…

So please do me a favor… You Liberals, walk next door, to your neighbor who IS doing the right things and ring his doorbell, then when he answers, tell him you want him and his family, that played by the rules, lived within their means and paid him mortgage, to pay YOURS and other losers also… Then get back here on HotAir and tell us how that went for ya… (thru your knocked out teeth and broken jaw)

Friends, this is really a very easy fight for Conservatives to win, big time… Just tell people:

Those that have paid their mortgages, worked hard, provided for their familys should NEVER have to pay, at the threat of jail, thru huge tax increases and redistribution for those that have made bad life choices, poor decisions, overspent and generaly F’d up…

(then use this line)

It’s NOT FAIR!!!!

Wussie, sissy, far left radical Liberal Progressives always like to talk about “feelings” and “fairness”… So turn it around on them… Ask your Socialist friends, “What’s fair about me paying someone elses mortgage?” Ask them to expalin that… They won’t be able to, or ask them to PAY YOUR MORTGAGE for YOU! See what they say…

There is NO defense for this redistribution of wealth, wealth transfer, handout to losers… It’s not FAIR!

This is a WINNING ISSUE with Moderates, Centerists, Conservatives across the board. Those of you wanting a “big tent”,(I don’t), here’s your chance, your issue…

Just from a state that knows the worst of Wall Street, many times over.

sethstorm on February 19, 2009 at 9:21 PM
Draw me a flow chart demonstrating the damage from Wall St to your state. I’ll bet ya can’t. “Wall Street is da debbil” is just another talking point.

ddrintn on February 19, 2009 at 9:31 PM

Pick up the phone and call Donald Trump; he will be VERY happy to answer that question. He was right about the oil sky high price and I believe if someone grabs him, he will have his say about this situation.

A Chicago day trader acting like he’s one of us, how precious. Its idiots and swindlers like him that got this country in trouble. A blowhard punk trader, yeah guy, your the one I want to listen too about middle class problems. puh…..leeze.

Man, I don’t like President Ogabe either, but isn’t it a bit harsh to talk about him like this?

I would only need to draw it based on the numbers of workers displaced directly, or indirectly from factories going to Third World/FTA countries.

To take a few words from Pearlstein:
Wall Street isn’t the devil so much as it’s a bunch of “petulant children” who aren’t getting their way. Some of them have yet to wake up much less want to reconcile with reality.

I am hearing this all over the place.
People are just plain Pissed off at
The elitist congress
The gag messiah who is dumber than a rock
All of the tax cheats running our country
And congress just spent another 850 billion on condoms, birth control in other nations, giving poor people in africa free abortions..
All at tax payer expense..

Now obama wants to GIVE free mortgage re-adjustments to all of the people who couldnt make the payments in the first place..

I don’t get it. This cult of personality business is just goofy. Who cares whether or not Santelli is “one of us” (whatever that means)? What’s important is his point – the point that taking money from people who responsibly pay their mortgage and giving it to those that don’t is a bad idea… a horrible idea!

Redistribution of wealth fosters mediocrity. Always has, always will. And Santelli was willing to say it. Before CNBC yanked the poll, nearly a quarter million people had responded, and of those, some 95% expressed willingness to join the Chicago Tea Party.

You disagree with Santelli’s motives? You think that because he’s on Wall Street his opinion doesn’t count? Okay, that’s your opinion. But to deny the fact that this one guy galvanized an entire massive group of people is to cut off your nose to spite your face.

Unless you have an alternate plan, I’d suggest getting on board the Chicago Tea Party concept. Me, I’m going to push my local news outlets to report the concept. Even if CNBC has yanked the poll, the video has gone viral and I think it’s a great message that needs to be co-opted and drum-beaten into the public consciousness.

No more entitlements. No more redistribution. It’s not your money to spend.